Jane Macartney, née Stuart, was born in 1742 to John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (1713-1792) and Mary Wortley-Montagu, Baroness Mount Stuart of Wortley (1718-1794), likely at the Bute estates on the Isle of Bute, Scotland. She married (1768) George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney (1737-1806). Whilst George Macartney served as ambassador to Ireland (1769-1776; 1788-1792), Grenada (1776-1779), Madras (1781-1785), China (Sept-Oct, 1793) and Cape Town (1796-1798), poor health kept Jane confined to London for all but the first sojourn in Ireland. There is only one extant letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Jane Macartney in 1786, meaning that they may have met on the London social scene, but do not seem to have had a more extensive relationship. Jane Macartney died on 28 February 1828, at Corney House in Chiswick, which she rented after the death of her husband in 1806.